Close Loophole

Gun-shows' Unregulated Sales Fly In Face Of Public Opinion

How often have you heard the lament, ``Why in the world doesn't somebody do something about . . .?'' I will leave it to you to finish the sentence.

Often it involves a loophole in the law which defies comprehension. In a society that believes in the equal protection principle, someone seems to be getting away with murder.

That is literally true when it comes to the unregulated sale of firearms in the United States. You thought we had taken care of things with the hard-won battle to enact the Brady Bill several years ago. Think again.

Today in the state of Florida there is a loophole that has torn a gaping wound in the body politic important enough to draw the attention of Florida's governor in his 1998 State of the State address.

It was gun violence that resulted in the deaths of 190 Florida children in 1996. He said, ``Let's close the loophole in our gun laws and make gun shows play by the same rules as retail stores and pawn shops. We should require background checks and a waiting period for gun-show purchases.'' That challenge met the stone-cold silence of a state Legislature that failed to act. This, despite the fact that in September of last year, federal agents of the Department of Justice obtained indictments from a federal grand jury in West Palm Beach against individuals who routinely appeared at Florida gun shows and engaged in selling more than 50 firearms at a single show to individual purchasers without any background checks or waiting period.

Enter the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission, which heard testimony as it traveled around the state about this and other problems and has in Revision No. 12 proposed to plug this loophole by simply authorizing each county the option of requiring a criminal history records check and three- to five-day waiting period in connection with the sale of any firearm where ``any part of the transaction is conducted on property to which the public has the right of access.''

Private gun shows flourish only because they admit the public. They up until now have escaped regulation by local authorities who simply lack the constitutional authority they need. The Florida Constitution has a local-option provision giving counties specific authority over the sale of liquor, wines and beer. It is certainly no great stretch to extend that same local-option provision to cover the sale of guns.

In providing for a Constitutional Revision Commission in the 1968 Florida Constitution, its framers were wise enough to foresee the need to give the voters themselves an opportunity for the periodic review of the basic document that would establish the framework of government for a rapidly growing state. ``We the People'' is not just an abstraction. It is the mandate in a democracy for the people to act where changing times bring new and unforeseen problems on which the Legislature is unwilling or unable to move.

We are not trapped in a time warp. Amending the Constitution is both a right and a responsibility. A distinguished commission composed of some of our wisest and most responsible citizens has devoted literally hundreds of hours to the conduct of the public hearings and debate on this constitutional revision, along with a dozen others. It represents direct democracy at its best when this important issue of strengthening gun control is handled in this careful and thoughtful manner.

In stark contrast to this careful and measured advocacy of change are the tactics of the proponents of continued stasis. Leave it to the Legislature, they chant in chorus with the National Rifle Association, which fiercely opposes any effort to tighten the screws on the merchants of death and destruction who use the venue of the traveling gun show to hawk their wares as they evade regulation.

Charlton Heston claims that felonies would by some unexplained alchemy become misdemeanors under Revision 12.

He is simply wrong.

It is the NRA tactic to mask their unremitting hostility to gun control despite the public's wishes.

Earlier this year, Peter Hart Associates, a respected national polling firm, said that the very proposition then being considered by Florida's Constitutional Revision Commission on the sale of guns occurring on all premises where the public had been invited was supported by 75 percent in statewide polls.

Interestingly, the same polls indicated more than two-thirds of the voters who identified themselves as living in gun-owning households concurred.

Charlton Heston is no Moses leading us to the promised land on this issue. Instead he is a false prophet.

He should have read further in the law of Moses to where it says: ``Do not spread false reports.'' (Exodus 23:1)